The invention relates to a film-processing apparatus, in particular for X-ray sheet film, with a first feeding device arranged in a daylight environment and serving for transporting film cassettes to a film loading and unloading station, a second feeding device arranged in a darkroom environment and serving for transporting exposed film, and with a transport device for moving the film sheets to a film-processing station.
Apparatus for daylight handling of X-ray film loaded in cassettes are known e.g. from prospectuses of the firm of DuPont, said prospectuses describing a cassette-handling system. A "Curix Compact Filmcenter" made by Agfa-Gevaert and a "Multiloader 300" made by Kodak are also known. These apparatus allow film loaded in cassettes to be fed to a film-processing unit via a loading and unloading station.
The known apparatus are disadvantageous in that only such films can be transported to the processing unit which have dimensions corresponding to the cassette formats. Larger film sizes cannot be fed to such a processing unit. On the one hand, this requires a separate processing unit and on the other hand, loading of a cassette with the above dimensions is technically complicated and cannot be realized in an economical manner. To avoid such disadvantages a modified "Capacity Plus-Film-center" of Agfa is known which comprises a feeding device for transporting exposed films in a darkroom environment. However, an apparatus of this type is disadvantageous in that an installed feeding unit requires complicated and extensive modifications in order that the film center be operated in daylight and be thus independent of a darkroom.